{"id":311637,"date":"2026-06-18T11:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/311637\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T11:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:36:19","slug":"is-juneteenth-a-day-off-in-florida-observance-vs-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/311637\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Juneteenth a day off in Florida? Observance vs. holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juneteenth falls on Friday<\/a>, June 19, this year, which may have Florida workers wondering if there’s a three-day weekend ahead.<\/p>\n

For federal employees, yes. For most Florida state employees, probably not.<\/p>\n

Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, was made a federal holiday<\/a> by Congress and President Joe Biden in 2021. But even though Florida was the second state after Texas to celebrate it in the 1980s, it is not an official state holiday.<\/p>\n

Is Juneteenth a paid state holiday in Florida?<\/p>\n

No. “Juneteenth Independence Day” is listed in Florida statutes<\/a> as a special day of observance, one of about 40. Most state agencies will operate on a normal Friday schedule.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a resolution<\/a> calling upon Floridians to honor Juneteenth as \u201can important opportunity to honor the principles of the Declaration of Independence and celebrate the achievements and contributions African Americans have made, and continue to make, in Florida and across our Nation.”<\/p>\n

But DeSantis has not issued a Juneteenth resolution or proclamation since. Repeated attempts to make Juneteenth an official state holiday have failed in the Florida Legislature. The last was in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How many US states recognize Juneteenth as a paid holiday?<\/p>\n

Florida isn’t the only state to recognize Juneteenth with an observance rather than a paid holiday, but it’s increasingly in the minority. At least 33 states and the District of Columbia<\/a> mark Juneteenth with a paid day off for nonessential state government workers, according to Pew Research.<\/p>\n

Some, most recently Kansas and Kentucky, have declared Juneteenth a paid state holiday, but not a permanent one, meaning it could be reversed. West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey did that last year<\/a>, acknowledging Juneteenth (which the previous governor had proclaimed a paid holiday every year since 2021), but keeping state workers in the office.<\/p>\n

Alabama made it a permanent holiday last year, following Alaska and Vermont in 2024. Other states, such as California and North Carolina, allow state workers to use personal leave that day.<\/p>\n

Florida continues to recognize Juneteenth symbolically but keeps its shorter list of paid holidays focused on traditional federal dates and a few state\u2011specific observances. Florida, like many other states, also recognizes the day slavery ended inside its borders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is Emancipation Day in Florida?<\/p>\n

Union Gen. Edward M. McCook announced the Emancipation Proclamation in Tallahassee on May 20, 1865<\/a>, a little less than a month before the Galveston announcement.<\/p>\n

May 20 is honored in many Florida cities and counties as Emancipation Day<\/a> (although it isn’t a paid holiday, either, and, unlike Juneteenth, is not listed in Florida statutes).<\/p>\n

What is Juneteenth?<\/p>\n

President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed enslaved people in the Confederate States of America as of Jan. 1, 1863.<\/p>\n

But it was largely ignored by Southern states since it couldn’t be enforced unless the United States won the Civil War, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, on June 19, 1865, more than two months after Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia and nearly 2\u00bd years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived at the last remaining bastion of slavery in Galveston Bay, Texas, to tell the more than a quarter of a million enslaved Black people there they were free.<\/p>\n

The first Juneteenth was held in Galveston the next year. For decades, celebrations were generally church gatherings and community events until the civil rights marches of the 60s and 70s, when Juneteenth became a larger celebration. The commemoration gained more prominence in 2020 with the police murder of George Floyd and the rising public awareness of police brutality.<\/p>\n

Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021.<\/p>\n

C. A. Bridges is a journalist for the USA TODAY Network-Florida’s service journalism Connect team. You can get all of Florida\u2019s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Juneteenth is a federal holiday, Do Florida workers get the day off?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juneteenth falls on Friday, June 19, this year, which may have Florida workers wondering if there’s a three-day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2568,28,30,100,29,14637,2565,129880,2573,412,129881,36301],"class_list":["post-311637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-federal-holiday","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-legislature","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-statutes","tag-juneteenth","tag-paid-holiday","tag-president-joe-biden","tag-ron-desantis","tag-state-holiday","tag-state-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}